Lawyer relives bombing nightmare
WINNIPEG • A lawyer whose hand was blown apart by a letter bomb recalled the few seconds when she hesitated before opening the strange package that had landed on her desk.
Maria Mitousis told an attempted murder trial in Winnipeg that she arrived at work on July 3, 2015, and found a puffy envelope on her desk addressed to her. The return address was a law firm where she previously worked. Inside was a voice recorder and a note.
“It said that it would help me with my case and that I should press play,” she testified Wednesday.
Mitousis thought the package was “weird” and started walking toward the office of the law firm’s managing partner. “But then I thought, ‘No, that’s silly’ ... and I read the note again.” She went back in her office, stood by the window, and pressed the play button. A loud bang followed, then shock and confusion.
“I remember feeling off balance ... dizzy. I remember feeling pain in my stomach and burning,” she said. “I could feel that I had pieces of metal, pieces of plastic — sharp pieces — in my mouth.
“I knew I was bleeding from my neck.”
Guido Amsel, the ex- husband of one of Mitousis’s clients, is facing attempted murder charges related to the explosion. Amsel is also accused of sending bombs to his ex- wife and a lawyer at another firm who had represented him. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
A colleague has already testified t hat Mitousis slumped on the floor while an ambulance was called.
In the hours that followed, Mitousis’s right hand was amputated. She underwent extensive surgery to repair her left arm, an ear and other areas.
Mitousis testified she is still in pain more than two years later. “My right arm is in a constant state of some kind of pain — throbbing, burning.”
Police found two other bombs in the days following the explosion and disposed of them safely. Amsel and his exwife had been in a bitter divorce battle that dragged on for years, along with a lawsuit over an autobody shop they co-owned.